BVSD officially hires Cindy Stevenson as interim superintendent

Former head of Jeffco schools steps into Bruce Messinger's role

By Amy Bounds

Staff Writer

Posted:
06/19/2017 12:23:36 PM MDT

Cindy Stevenson talks with Boulder Valley School District board members after she was hired as the interim superintendent on Monday morning at the Education Center in Boulder. (Paul Aiken / Staff Photographer)

All but one member, Jennie Belval, were present at the 8 a.m. meeting.

"We're all glad to have her in place and glad to be moving forward," Boulder Valley school board President Sam Fuqua said. "She's run a large district, a district much larger than ours. She has the experience, and she really cares about the Boulder Valley School District."

The interim superintendent position is expected to last six months to one year. The contract, which goes through June 30, 2018, provides a per-diem salary for actual days worked based on an equivalent annual salary of $180,000.

The contract specifies that Stevenson will work at least 220 days, but not more than 280 days, in the next year.

Messinger, who was fired in a unanimous board vote in May over an unspecified personnel complaint, made $261,654 a year.

Advertisement

When Stevenson heard about the issues surrounding Messinger, she reached out to board members and offered her help, however it was needed.

They told her that her leadership could be used in the interim superintendent position, and she said she was surprised — but willing to jump in.

Stevenson said her first order of business will be to go on a listening tour to get to know principals and other school staff members.

"I need to do a lot of deep learning about Boulder Valley schools," she said. "For the next two weeks, I'm going to talk to people. I'll be having lots of meetings, lots of conversations. There's a lot to learn."

While her time in the district is limited, she said, the district will have her "100 percent."

"I don't care how long you're at it, you have an obligation to the teachers and children and community," she said. "It's about continuous improvement, where are we going, what do we believe."

Stevenson served as the Jefferson County superintendent for 12 years, retiring in 2014 after a new conservative majority took over that district's school board. She's lived in Boulder since 1968.

In Boulder Valley, two and sometimes three of the school board members have consistently voted against the board majority on several issues, including the district's budget, placing a tax increase on the ballot and renewing the former superintendent's contract.

Stevenson said she doesn't expect board members to always agree, but does want to see them "treat each other respectfully."

"It's really important that the board has civil discourse," she said, adding that all the Boulder Valley school board members seem to be motivated by a desire to do what's best for the district and its students.

"Their motivations are all in the right place," she said.

Stevenson was named Colorado Superintendent of the Year and was a finalist for the national award in 2010.

"Being a superintendent is the most important work I ever did," she said.

After retiring, she served as director of the Colorado Association of School Executives' Leadership Initiative before taking her current position as senior consultant for Colorado nonprofit Public Education and Business Coalition.

She was also the senior instructor for the School of Education and Human Development at the University of Colorado Denver.

Starting in August, the board plans to start talking about a national search for the district's next superintendent, mimicking the 2011 search that involved community members in the process, Fuqua said.

In 2011, finalists were interviewed by the school board and community committees that included about 90 teachers, administrators and community members.

"We found someone really good for the short term, and now we can focus on the long term," Fuqua said.

Article Comments

We reserve the right to remove any comment that violates our ground rules, is spammy, NSFW, defamatory, rude, reckless to the community, etc.

We expect everyone to be respectful of other commenters. It's fine to have differences of opinion, but there's no need to act like a jerk.

Use your own words (don't copy and paste from elsewhere), be honest and don't pretend to be someone (or something) you're not.

Our commenting section is self-policing, so if you see a comment that violates our ground rules, flag it (mouse over to the far right of the commenter's name until you see the flag symbol and click that), then we'll review it.

The Boulder alt-country band gives its EPs names such as Death and Resurrection, and its songs bear the mark of hard truths and sin. But the punk energy behind the playing, and the sense that it's all in good fun, make it OK to dance to a song like "Death." Full Story